Here are my impressions of the Ducky Shine II tenkeyless keyboard.
*tic* *click* *clack* *thuck*
*tic* *click* *clack* *thuck*
*tic* *click* *clack* *thuck*
*tic* *click* *clack* *thuck*
*tic* *click* *clack* *thuck*
*tic* *click* *clack* *thuck*
*tic* *click* *clack* *thuck*
*tic* *click* *clack* *thuck*
*tic* *click* *clack* *thuck*
*
NICE*
Mine is a DK9087S2-CUSALY, with Cherry MX blue switches and yellow LEDs.
First off, this are just my opinions, and my opinions do not imply failure or fault.
I got a Ducky 87 key illuminated keyboard yesterday from mechanicalkeyboards.com.
I didn't personally unpack the box, it was delivered to work and the shipping dept. unpacked it.
The box was somewhat scuffed and had obviously been handled, all the expected parts were in the box.
The keyboard itself is a solid little unit, it has a pleasing heft to it and seems rigid and substantial.
The housing is free of logos and badges.
The left and right windows keys and the space bar display the ducky logo when the back light is on.
It is possible to control the back light on every key except two keys above the right cluster and the
CAPS and SCROLL lock keys which reflect their active state and always use a fixed brightness.
The key caps have a uniform level of brightness that is affected by amount of transparent area required to display the key cap character.
Typically the letters are bold and show the most light, the numbers on the top row are uniformly smaller and slightly less light is exposed,
and the function keys are also reasonably uniform in brightness. The resultant effect is that they group well.
Backlight intensity is usable from OFF + 5 levels of brightness. The lowest setting is appropriate for a dark room and the brightest setting is almost glaring.
It may be important to note that the unshifted value of the key is illuminated.
The shifted value of the keys are not prominent and appear as grey on black.
Also the unshifted value is on the upper half of the keycap and the shifted value is on the lower half on the keycap. I found this slightly annoying as I like the standard of putting the shifted value on the top and the unshifted value on the bottom.
I understand the change is associated with the mechanical positioning with the LED. The aesthetics are pleasing, so I can accept this readily.
All of the function keys have double duty, accessed by simultaneous press with Fn. A drawback of this is all of the multimedia keys require two key presses, on the other hand, there are less keys on the keyboard and all of the keys are in the normal position.
There is no 'Menu'/'Application' key that is found on some keyboards. SHIFT+F10 or right mouse click provides that functionality. I don't know why they have both a left and right windows key instead of one windows key and one menu/app key. Many keyboards have a single windows key, including microsofts' natural keyboards.
The USB cord is detachable, nicely protected in a recessed area with an adequate strain relief. There is a cable routing area that allows you to route it to the left, middle or right at the back of the keyboard, Oddly, it does NOT provide for the cable to come out the side of the keyboard, but fortunately there is enough recess at the back that the cord itself need not stick out past the back of the enclosure.
Duckys' rubber feet are wide and ample for a solid non slip stance on the work surface.
The Cherry MX Blue switches feel (to me) stifffer than the Cherry MX Browns.
The blues have the noticeable *tic* as the finger taps the key, 'click' as the tactile point is reached, the 'clack' as the key bottoms out and the 'thuck' as it returns to the sprung position.
*tic* *click* *clack* *thuck*
*tic* *click* *clack* *thuck*
*tic* *click* *clack* *thuck*
*tic* *click* *clack* *thuck*
*tic* *click* *clack* *thuck*
yeah it is noisy, and the *clack* and the *thuck* are so close together they sound as one.
The keyboard does not expose any extension USB ports and is rated to draw up to 100mA on the USB port.
The rear elevation feet are not impressive, they do not have nonslip bottoms but are sturdy and functional. Using them can transmit slightly more noise to the work surface .
Some of the larger keys, the ample BACKSPACE key, the two SHIFT keys, the ENTER were a bit mushy when I first used them. The SPACE bar seems fine.
The ABS key caps have a matte feel to them, and an appropriate font is revealed when the backlight is on.
The legends are well formed and legible if you are trying to read them but are not obvious or distinct due to low contrast.
So whats it like to use a tenkeyless layout?
For the most part I didn't miss that rightmost cluster of keys at all, I DID like the ready availability of the four arrow keys.
There were two keys that I did miss, the NumPadAdd + and the NumPadSub - keys. I use AutoHotkey to map the PgUp and PgDn keys to them with a modifier key.
Bottom line is, I really like this noisy compact and easy to read (when illuminated) keyboard.
